Shows
Negotiating Reality Podcast4A. Explorations with Rob DunnIntroductionWelcome back to Negotiating Reality, where we explore how we understand our world and reckon with the possibility that many of our deeply held truths just might be delusions. I'm your host, Eric Hekler.Throughout Season 1, we've been building a framework for understanding the fundamental nature of reality—what philosophers call metaphysics. We've discovered that "Life Breathes" together across vast scales of space and time, that "Islands Sculpt" each other in endless webs of relationship, and that "Beings Adapt" by consciously constructing reality through cultural concepts and social agreements.Today, I'm thrilled to...
2025-09-261h 36
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 4. Beings AdaptIntroductionHello, and welcome back to the Negotiating Reality Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Hekler.We've been on a three-part journey exploring the fundamental assumptions we make about the nature of reality—what philosophers call metaphysics. Today, we reach one that may initially feel disorienting, but as you grow into it, I hope you'll find it truly liberating and inspiring for navigating our current moment (and the need for it was perfectly set up in my discussion with colleagues, Mai Nguyen and Keith Pezzoli, check it out here). In Episode 1, we explored the ch...
2025-09-051h 14
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 3a. - How Urban planning is shaped and shapes us: a discussion with Mai Nguyen & Keith PezzoliEpisode SummaryReckoning & Reimagining Urban PlanningIn this rich conversation, Drs. Mai Nguyen and Keith Pezzoli join me to explore how urban planning shapes our communities - and how communities can shape back.The Historical ReckoningMai opens with a stark truth: American cities were designed from their inception to discriminate and segregate. The first zoning ordinances around 1908 in LA, for example, weren't just about separating residential from industrial uses - they were explicitly crafted to exclude minorities from certain neighborhoods and concentrate wealth in single-family zones where white families lived.
2025-08-291h 27
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 2c. Thinking in Deep Time - A Conversation with Dr. Marcia BjornerudSummaryIn this mind-bending conversation, geoscientist Dr. Marcia Bjornerud (author of Timefulness and Turning to Stone) and I explore the radical implications of thinking in geological time—and why our culture's "adolescent pugilistic relationship with nature" is literally threatening our survival.We dive deep into the ramifications of taking an overly "Newtonian" worldview to science, examine the sobering parallels between today's climate crisis and the "slow-mo catastrophes" that caused Earth's prior great mass extinctions, and explore why mainstream geology just may be quietly aligning towards ideas that may have been dismissed as "new agey.” Dr...
2025-08-081h 27
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 3. Islands SculptIntroductionWelcome to the Negotiating Reality podcast, where we explore how we understand our world and reckon with the possibility that many of our deeply held truths just might be delusions. I'm your host, Eric Hekler. This is part two of a three-part series on metaphysics—examining the fundamental nature and underlying assumptions we make about reality.In our first episode in this series, "Life Breathes," we explored how all life is interconnected and interdependent. Today, we dive into understanding how context matters through the aphorism "Islands Sculpt.""Context matters" is such a tr...
2025-07-1138 min
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 2b. Negotiation with Reverend Dr. Christopher CarterI'm excited to welcome Reverend Dr. Christopher Carter—someone who's been both teacher and guide for me in learning how to breathe into spiritual formation. I met Christopher in late 2019 at a Racial Resilience Workshop he co-led with Seth Schoen. What struck me immediately was how they held something almost impossible in our polarized times: seeing racism's deep complexities and harms while never dehumanizing anyone. They offered a rare path through troubled times rooted in love and grace.Christopher and Seth became key teachers in navigating not just racial dynamics, but my own struggles with my...
2025-06-101h 35
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 2. Life BreathesPart 1 of a 3 Part Series about Metaphysics: Explorations into the fundamental structure and nature of reality"Life Breathes."If history has a rhythm, what happens when we zoom way out—past generations, past centuries—into geologic and cosmic time?What if history isn’t just human memory—but planetary breath? The pulsing, expanding, and contracting of life itself—across billions of years?Why does that matter?Well...If you were riding a tidal wave that’s about to crash into shore—wouldn’t you want to know?Here’s the roadm...
2025-05-0938 min
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 2a. Life Breathes Together – A Breathing MeditationIf you haven’t yet listened to the Life Breathes episode, I invite you to do so when the time feels right.This meditation is offered as a companion to that story—something you can return to whenever you feel the need to breathe with life.This is an invitation to explore breathing not just as a personal rhythm, but as participation in a larger symphony—the breath of all life. Like all invitations, you can accept it, set it aside, or return to it when you're ready.There is no right way to do this.J...
2025-05-0912 min
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 1a. Negotiating with Dr. Donna Spruijt-Metz What happens when spiritual wisdom, poetic insight, and systems thinking walk into a podcast studio?This first negotiation episode features a rich, unscripted conversation me, Eric Hekler, and my long-time mentor and friend Dr. Donna Spruijt-Metz—a retired USC Professor/Psychologist, accomplished poet, behavioral scientist, rabbinical school dropout, and fellow traveler through the breakdowns and breakthroughs of our time.Together, we wrestle with the big stuff:– Is our spiritual, civic, and natural infrastructure collapsing—or just in need of a long-overdue software update?– Why is the scorched-earth path so seductive… and what might we do inst...
2025-04-301h 07
Negotiating Reality PodcastEpisode 1. IntroductionAn Introduction[intro music, first variation of Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition]Hello, and welcome to Negotiating Reality! I’m your host, Eric Hekler. If you’ve ever had that nagging sense that something in our culture is, well, off — but struggle to articulate exactly what it is, I hear you! What is going on right now?!If you are feeling that way, you’re in the right place! And probably losing sleep. But mostly, you’re in the right place. Here, we won’t JUST wallow in existential dread...
2025-03-1436 min
The Behavioral Design PodcastWhen to AI, and When Not to AI with Eric HeklerWhen to AI, and When Not to AI with Eric Hekler"People are different. Context matters. Things change."In this episode of the Behavioral Design Podcast, Aline is joined by Eric Hekler, professor at UC San Diego, to explore the nuances of AI in behavioral science and health interventions. Eric’s mantra—emphasizing the importance of individual differences, context, and change—serves as a foundation for the conversation as they discuss when AI enhances behavioral interventions and when human judgment is indispensable.The discussion explores just-in-time adaptive interventions (JITAI), the efficiency trap of AI, an...
2025-03-061h 06
The Other OthersPost-truth MetacrisisApologies for so long between episodes. All is explained in this yarn with Kabir Kadre (wounded mystic) and Eric Hekler (former techno-utopian), as we explore the cataclysmic shifting of overton windows, faith and empiricism during the terrifying inflection point of a US election that is destabilizing systems globally.
2024-10-231h 53
Ergotopia: Schmerzfrei, Gesund & Produktiv!046 - Langfristige Gewohnheiten entwickeln - Teil 2Diese Folge ist der zweite Teil zum Thema “Gewohnheiten”. Die Sportwissenschaftlerin Nina und der Arzt Olli klären, wie man neue Gewohnheiten aufbaut und langfristig beibehält. Literaturnachweise: Ergotopia-App: https://www.ergotopia.de/app Die 1 %-Methode" von James Clear Tiny Habits" von B.J. Fogg Zen Habits" von Leo Babauta McPherson, Gary. (2005). From child to musician: Skill development during the beginning stages of learning an instrument. Psychology of Music - PSYCHOL MUSIC. 33. 5-35. 10.1177/0305735605048012. https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/identity-based-habits/ Ranganathan VK, Siemionow V, Liu J...
2024-05-0315 min
Ergotopia: Schmerzfrei, Gesund & Produktiv!045 - Langfristige Gewohnheiten entwickeln - Teil 1Diese Folge ist der erste Teil zum Thema “Gewohnheiten”. Die Sportwissenschaftlerin Nina und der Arzt Olli sprechen über das Thema “Gewohnheiten” und klären, warum so viele an ihren Vorsätzen scheitern und geben Tipps, was man dagegen tun kann. Literaturnachweise: Die 1 %-Methode" von James Clear Tiny Habits" von B.J. Fogg Zen Habits" von Leo Babauta McPherson, Gary. (2005). From child to musician: Skill development during the beginning stages of learning an instrument. Psychology of Music - PSYCHOL MUSIC. 33. 5-35. 10.1177/0305735605048012. https://www.samuelthomasdavies.com/identity-based-habits/ Ranga...
2024-04-1915 min
IBTNSession 7: Innovation in Digital Behavioural Interventions: Chaired by Angela Pfammatter, PhD Transforming behavioural interventions to digital: developing e-health solutions for behavior change
Predrag Klasnja, PhD
Innovations in e-health solutions in behavioural medicine
Eric Hekler, PhD
Professional and organisational factors to consider for successful digital behavioural interventions
Marie-Pierre Gagnon, PhD
Video of this conference can be found here: www.ibtnetwork.org/conference/virtual2020
2020-06-241h 37